Rust eyes turn to Polish wines

On a previous trip to Rust in May, while I was enjoying my Weinakademie sessions, Tysia spent quality time befriending half the town. 😉 In conversations with the local winemakers, the subject of Polish wine, which no one had known at all, always came up. We thought: let’s change that! 

Courtesy of Victoria from Galerie Cafe, who helped organise the evening and, most importantly, increased the reach of this small spontaneous event—instead of a few people we had invited, a dozen turned up—we showed 7 Polish bottles to local winemakers, chefs, and friends from the area yesterday.

We hosted friends from, among others, Ernst Triebaumer, Weingut Gabriel, Weingut Giefing, Rusterhof and Buschenschank Peter Schandl.

We opened a Winnica Smolis sparkling. We dared to ‘bring wood to the forest’ and showed a Riesling from Winnica Marcinowice and a Blaufränkisch from Kamil Barczentewicz alongside Kamil’s Pinot Noir. We also showed an oaky Winnica Turnau Chardonnay. We couldn’t miss something more crazy and unusual either—Qvevri by Winnica Płochockich proudly wore the amber colour. Finally, for dessert, we brought Solaris Nobilis 2022 from Winnica Saganum.

It was truly heartwarming to hear compliments on the sweet one from winemakers who occupy the 95-100 point range in Falstaff scores and see broad smiles with our Blaufränkisch in the glass—in Burgenland! There was not a wine in the set that was not met with some favourable comments.

Thanks to everyone for making this evening a reality! To all our guests, to our host, Victoria at Galerie Cafe, to Tysia, who was a spiritus movens of this whole thing and last but not least, to Maciej Nowicki for indispensable help in choosing the perfect lineup!